The Tin Man's Heart
by Dare5
Summary: There are lots of things you do when you fall in love - and unfortunately, in the beginning, most of them are stupid.


**Title: **The Tin Man's Heart  
**Author: **Dare5  
**Rating: **PG-13 (Nothing too graphical, I guess. It's fun, mostly.)  
**Characters/Pairings: **Tony/Pepper, cameo by Irongirl  
**Disclaimer:** "Ironman", Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and all related characters belong to Mavel Entertainment. I'm not making any money with them, so don't sue me.  
**Summary:** Everyone needs to be rescued. Even Tony Stark.  
**Note:** English is NOT my primary language. Please bear with me.

It's something I thought about when watching the movie. Something of a "What If ...". If you will, it can be called a drabble. And it's supposed to be fun and humorous.

BTW, I thought I'd settle for the desert, but – well, we already have desert in the movie, and I'm watching Ang Lee's Hulk and so I'm going to try jungle. I love jungle. Just FYI. Be warned, this is going to be really clichéed. And sappy. And clichéed.

Ah, yes, and English's not my first tongue – I learned it at school and have been in an English-speaking country about eight years ago for two weeks, so please bear with me.

Not beta-ed. You'll notice, I'm sure.

The Tin Man's Heart (1/?)  
Something Stupid  
by Dare5

"Do you have any idea what his escapades have cost us up to this day?" Colonel Rhodes demanded. He was pacing in front of Pepper, waiting for the phone to ring. "Millions of dollars." He turned towards Pepper and emphasized the number again. "_Millions!_"

"Stark Enterprises will come up for --"

"And who will come up for my therapist's bill?" Rhodes roared, his eyes blazing. The phone ringed and the uniformed man picked it up. "Yes?" he barked into the shell. "Yes. Yeah, yes."

Pepper watched him carefully. She knew Rhodes cared genuinely for Mr. Stark, but she also knew that his superiors wanted to wrangle his neck – again – for failing to control Stark.

It was a constant balancing act for the man, juggling his friendship, admiration and frustation day after day. And it was not easy to handle Tony Stark – Pepper knew that since nine years. She felt sympathy for the man and was glad he was there, looking for Tony, but her loyalty for her boss exceeded her loyalty for Colonel Rhodes tenfold.

Leaving Rhodey alone with the phone, she made her way to Tony's workshop to clean things up.

One of his robots – she didn't know which one – had knocked over one of the tables with all the empty coffee cups on it, along with some of Tony's more expensive equipment – she didn't want him to come home to a mess.

Not the mess that was his working place nor the mess that was herself, Pepper Potts. Since Afghanistan and since his invention of Iron Man, she was in constant worry for him. It was as if the changes within Tony now manifested themselves in ever-present danger. He had changed, for the better no less, but his old life had been a lot safer. Obediah had taken care of all the things capable of potentially killing Tony and now, that Obediah was gone, Mr. Stark had to face reality.

Picking up some USB drives, some laser ... thingies, some of the magazines with naked women on their front pages, Tony claimed he was only reading for the articles, she decided to fill the silence with some conversation.

"Jarvis?"

"Yes, Miss Potts?" Jarvis' carefully modulated voice came out of nowhere.

_Ask him about something that will calm you down. Like literature. Or today's weather. Nothing upsetting, as you are already upset enough._

"Heard anything from the government of Peru yet?" Pepper asked Jarvis and fought down the little voice in her head.

_Well done,_ the voice said dryly.

_Oh, shut up,_ Pepper replied silently.

"Negative," the computer said. "They are still looking for him, but so far, no sign at all."

She cleaned the same spot on the table with solid determination, while her lips formed a thin, worried line. Fell down from the sky. Into a country that's hot, dangerous, has a jungle, lots of dangerous animals and enough people who'd love to get the Iron Man suit into their hands.

Well done, Mr. Stark.

_First Afghanistan and now this. First the desert and now the bloody jungle._

"I don't get it," Pepper said. "How come you can't track his signal? He has been in the Himalaya, evading the Chinese Army and you have been able to track his signal. And he is Tony Stark – he could repair it with a spoon and a rubber band, right?"

"Miss Potts, with all due respect, but maybe he is not in the position to repair anything. Might I remind you that he has fallen from a height of twenty-six thousand feet," Jarvis informed her in an irritatingly gentle tone – for a machine.

She still cleaned the same spot on the table. The wood under the varnish started to show. "Shouldn't they be able to find a crater?"

"Apparently there is no crater," Jarvis said. "You have to understand, Miss Potts: The helicopters in a climate that is as hot and as rainy as the Peru rain forest are only able to cover that much area a day. It will take them weeks to do a thorough search and it is still possible that Mr. Stark came down somewhere entirely else."

"I see," Miss Potts said. She was still occupied with the mess on and next to the table. "I see."

Jarvis was the most advanced artificial intelligence the planet Earth had to offer. He was able to monitor heartbeat, body temperature and even could do CT scans if necessary. He could learn from people and about people from his daily interactions with them. He was not very good at it, but to some extent he was able to foretell some of their likely future actions.

Watching Miss Potts, his sub routines started to work.

He watched her directing her gaze on Tony Stark's back up iron suit. In her hands, she was still holding two empty cups and some magazines. Her gaze wandered up to the helmet which seemed to return her calm contemplation.

Some of his basic programs started to do an analyses of Mr. Stark and Miss Pott's realationship and Jarvis decided to include his previously collected data of Miss Pott's behavior during Mr. Stark's disappearance in Afghanistan.

Jarvis sub routines produced a huge amount of data, and finally, a conclusion. And in Jarvis' mind, which was completely different from a human mind, words showed up he had learned during his interactions with Mr. Stark.

_I hope she doesn't do anything stupid._

Jarvis' hope was disappointed.

Tony Stark was sure things couldn't get any worse.

It was an entirely new definition of "stuck", he realized.

First of all, and generally spoken, he was, of course, stuck in the bloody rain forests. It was pretty hot here and so he had opened his helmet – to let the mosquitos in, he later realized.

Second, he was stuck on that bloody tree. He had already fallen about twenty thousand feet, splitting about half of the three, but unfortunately there was enough of it left to still fall to a certain death.

Which lead him to number three: The bloody suit.

His fall had removed parts of the cover of the suit, leaving the electronics inside for everyone to see. And shortly after that, because it was a bloody rain forest, it started to rain, resulting in a short circuit.

It had taken Tony Stark, wunderkind and genius, about three hours to stop his left, still armor clad arm, to punch himself. In the meantime, his left leg had gone stiff, he couldn't move his upper body properly and his right gauntlet made groping movements all the time, when there was nothing – or no one – to grope. At all.

The Arc Generator was intact – thank God – but everything else was a mess.

And, he was still stuck on the tree, no liana in sight and – when he got even more desperate – no guy, or girl, only dressed in a loin cloth.

He had managed to climb down about half of the tree, and realized, there was still enough left of it to jump to his imminent death, when things started to get really bad.

He heard the noise of a jet and lifted his head. Something was on the sky, an aircraft, no doubt, but it behaved strangely, doing a looping and some staggering movements, until it came to a stop. It still wavered and seemed to wait for something.

Stark's eyes narrowed a bit and his forehead started to wrinkle. "What the hell ...?"

The objects suddenly lost height, tumbled a bit and fell further with an alarming speed. And, to complicate things further, it aimed for Tony's tree.

"Oh, fu --" the man growled and tried to climb down faster.

The sound of jet engines and impending doom started to fill Tony's ears as he tried to reach the ground without breaking his neck and/or punching himself. He graped a branch, fought for balance, almost fell and saved himself by graping another branch.

Ground was – oh – only about four meters away. Jump and break your legs and your neck, or stay and be buried by some flying moron? Tough choice.

The object came nearer and nearer.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, braced himself for the impact and --

-- a loud, thunderous crack almost made his eardrums explode. Birds started to flee, then the jungle was absolutely quiet.

Complete and utter silence.

Lifting his head, he realized that whatever it was that had fallen from the sky, it had split the neighbour tree. A huge gap divided it into two pieces.

Whiping his forehead and trying to scare the mosqitos away, he managed a relieved sigh. "Phew."

And then, the other tree started to creak – and softly leaned into his direction. You didn't have to be a genius to notice that it was going to fall over. With a sound that was surprisingly soft, the other tree hit Tony's tree and both of them – Tony, who was clutching his tree desperately, and the tree itself started to fall.

"Someone's going to pay for this," Tony growled, tried to move and finally jumped.

It had rained and, of course, the ground was muddy and strangely alive with all kind of insects. Also, he almost got crushed by the – he glanced back – _bertholletia excelta._ A short circuit almost grilled him and his right leg started to walk backwards.

And, it started to rain.

"Someone's so going to pay for this," Tony swore and started to make his way towards the slightly smoking crater. It took him about half a second to identify an iron-clad leg and his back-up suit.

"Rhodey!" he roared. "Are you completely crazy! Have you completely lost it? You stupid bastard! What are you doing here?" He managed to pounce the other person, determined to open the helmet and give Rhodey a well-deserved left hook. "You ruined my suit! You – completely ruined it! You -" He noticed the extend of the damage. "Oh, bloody --!"

He was pinning the other man down, wrestling with him.

"I was always nice to you! Didn't like the coffee machine Pepper bought you last Christmas? Fine! Next time you get a towel! Or a DVD player – or whatever you want, you stupid, crazy --"

The helmet opened.

It wasn't Rhodey.

"It was _her_ idea," Jarvis' voice came somewhere out of the suit.

Tony stared.

It was Pepper.

"Hi," she said, softly. Her blue eyes were strangely clouded.

"Pepper?" he managed, whispering. "What are you --? Are you crazy?"

And then, he noticed the blood.

End (1/?).


End file.
